


bud like you

by otachi



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, M/M, Mutual Pining, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-23
Updated: 2018-02-23
Packaged: 2019-03-22 18:34:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13770066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/otachi/pseuds/otachi
Summary: Connor’s stoned out of his fucking mind when he decides to text Evan Hansen.





	bud like you

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this whole thing while high and only read it through once before posting. i cannot attest to its quality. it was entirely self-indulgent

****Connor’s stoned out of his fucking mind when he decides to text Evan Hansen. He barely even knows the kid - they were English partners for a particularly memorable book report, wherein Evan stuttered for about half the presentation and Connor ended up taking over the whole thing. That’s about the extent of their relationship, if you can even call it one. He’d had Hansen round just the once to work on the report, texted him once or twice to make some corrections, and that had been pretty much it.

He still had the other boy’s number saved in his phone, from their attempts to organise a meeting point for the project. Connor wasn’t quite sure why he’d chosen not to delete it. Probably the same reason he never deleted any of the other contacts he’d saved in his phone either, no matter the connection or how long it had lasted. Maybe it just made him feel popular. Like he actually had friends.

Either way, Connor’s pretty not-with-it when he sends the text. He barely even registers who ‘Evan’ is before sending the text, gets a brief visual of a boy with a cast on his arm (long since removed) and a striped polo shirt and thinks ‘oh, the zoe/letter/tree kid’, and then the message is gone, shot off somewhere into the ether. Connor glances down at his phone like he hadn’t even done anything, that the message had somehow managed to type and then send itself, because yes, he’d done the whole texting thing, but then when he thought about the fact that he’d done it, had thought it had been just a thought, and hadn’t happened. He’s quite high.

 **Connor [11:47 PM]:** hey hansen

He gets no response, at least not for a while. He stays where he is, lying in a field close (close-ish, maybe,) to his house, far enough away that Cynthia and Larry would probably give up looking before they stumbled across him, if they actually bothered searching for him, but not so far that getting home later would be a problem, beyond the fact that it’d require walking for half an hour or so. It’s wet outside, and the wet is making it very cold, and his hoodie probably isn’t thick enough for him to be lying in a damp, grassy field. This thought is enough to move Connor to action, and he wanders to a dry patch under a cluster of trees, boughs leafy enough that they’ve protected the shelter they give from whatever rain had passed over earlier in the day.

 **Evan [11:53 PM]:** connor!?

Connor’s somehow not in the least bit surprised that Evan types like that. He uses _punctuation_ for Christ’s sake. He didn’t capitalise, sure, but there was no way he was doing that just to seem cool, or calm, or whatever - maybe his phone was one of the budget ones where you had to deliberately click to capitalise the first letter of every sentence manually. He wasn’t really sure why he was thinking so much about this.

 **Connor [11:55 PM]:** why dont you use capitals

 **Connor [11:56 PM]:** use capital letters i mean

 **Connor [11:57 PM]:** like ur actually so fucking anal about some stuff theres no way ur just doing it accidentally right?

 **Evan [11:58 PM]:** no offence but why are you texting me? especially if it’s just to insult me or whatever it is you’re doing here

 **Connor [11:59 PM]:** i just thought you’d be interesting

Evan stops texting him after that, and Connor assumes that means he’s had enough, and he isn’t going to indulge Connor in his games. Connor is actually about to give up, move on to texting Alana, who he’s pretty sure he also had to do an English project with, when his phone dings with the merry tune of a text message. He hums quietly to himself.

 **Evan [12:06 AM]:** my phone isn’t, it’s quite old so i guess it was never built with the auto-capitals thing most of them are? so uh, if i want to text grammatically correctly and that, i’d have to change to capitals manually all the time and it just seemed like it was, that it might have taken a bit of time, ‘cause my phone’s so fiddly, and then whoever i was talking to might get annoyed that it was taking me so long to get back to them, so they’d give up on waiting and wouldn’t talk to me anymore. so i thought not using capitals was, it would at least be a bit better than that

 **Connor [12:08 AM]:** called it

 **Connor [12:09 AM]:** like you always try and sound so proper all the time i figured u wouldnt be doing it out of choice or whatever

 **Connor [12:09 AM]:** and i couldnt think of another reason you might be doing it

Evan, again, stops responding. Connor thinks he might be too obviously-high for the other kid to want to talk to him, and that would be fair enough, because not everyone self-medicates in quite the same way Connor does. But then he remembers how nervous Hansen gets, and is, just generally, and thinks he might not have left his last text open enough for a response, and now maybe Evan thinks Connor doesn’t want to keep talking to him, and well - Connor has to at least make sure that’s the case, right? He’s decided he wants to talk to Hansen, so he may as well be sure.

 **Connor [12:15 AM]:** why are u up so late hnsen? i always figured yd be one of those people whos like ‘gotta be in bed before 11 pm so i can be ready for tomorrow!’ so this is a surprise

Apparently a high Connor Murphy isn’t entirely off-putting, because he gets a reply soon enough.

 **Evan [12:16 AM]:** i couldn’t sleep. i get like that sometimes, like, i’ll start thinking about something and it’ll just spiral and spiral and keep getting worse and worse, like, you know those cans that you use to spray whipped cream or whatever? like when everything that comes out of that can expands and then it all leads on and on and on to more of the same stuff as you keep using it? if that makes sense. sorry, i think that was maybe a weird thing to say

 **Connor [12:19 AM]:** wow

 **Evan [12:20 AM]:** sorry

 **Connor [12:20 AM]:** its chill dude its cool. youre kinda weird

 **Connor [12:21 AM]:** i sort of thought you’d be kind of a stereotypical preppy dude behind all of the anxiety

 **Connor [12:22 AM]:** like in an ideal world i cld see you with some of the science kids, the ones you know are gonna grow up to be like, researchers for nasa or some shit, or maybe the environmental like. hippy types

 **Connor [12:23 AM]:** not like. that i’ve seen you without the anxiety tho actually maybe ur just interesting because ur still stressed so ur saying stuff differently than u would normally and maybe normal u actually is just a preppy dude with no substance. but theoretically ur kinda weird

Connor thinks he might have insulted Evan, but he’s just being honest. Evan’s the kind of kid you _expect_ to do well, to get good grades and attend just enough extra-curriculars that it looks good on his college applications, but not too many that he doesn’t have time to study, or spend time with his family. Instead, though, you hear him talk and it’s sort of like a trainwreck. It’s different every time, too, situation-dependent. Connor’s noticed that.

With presentations there’s a lot of stop-starting, hesitation, like he’s reading from whatever script he’s been given and then suddenly started panicking that he’s read the wrong part of the script, so he needs to go back and check that he’s reading the right part, but then he forgets which word he was meant to be saying next, so it’s a constant on-and-then-off thing. When he’s scared (when you cornered him and shoved him around and called him a freak, Connor thinks to himself,) he stutters, and gets pale, and everything catches, like pushing closed a window that’s just a little too rusty to get all the way down on it’s own. When he’s feeling embarrassed, or out of his element, or doesn’t know how to respond, he lies.

Connor’s sure he’s not the only one to have noticed the way Hansen’s lines don’t add up all the time, why sometimes Jared nudges him and gives him a _look_ after he’s said something, and Hansen immediately clams up.

So. Hansen’s different.

 **Evan [12.26 AM]:** i kind of feel like you’re insulting me, now

 **Connor [12.27 AM]:** nahhh i just mean like. you seem like you could be popular. you just aren’t

 **Evan [12.28 AM]:** gee, thanks

 **Connor [12.29 AM]:** we should hang out

 **Evan [12.29 AM]:** what?

 **Connor [12.31 AM]:** like right now. we should hang out. send me your address ill look you up on google maps

 **Evan [12.32 AM]:** connor, it’s past midnight

 **Connor [12.33 AM]:** yeah

 **Connor [12.33 AM]:** text me your address

Connor only has to wait a moment before Evan replies, and he grins, surprised and delighted, and too amused to even consider masking his happiness.

 **Evan [12.34 AM]:** okay, 

 

* * *

 

He thinks about throwing rocks at Evan’s window, in the vague, non-committal way he thinks about most of the impulses he has, before they become something he really, absolutely has to do, right now, and that he then does.

He doesn’t throw any rocks at Evan’s window, though, even though he’d already gathered up a good fistful of pebbles because one of the windows of the comfortable little home, the only one with the lights still one, slides open, suddenly, and Evan’s head pokes out, visible like a haloed angel with the way he’s backlit by the soft yellow glow of what looks like a desk lamp. Connor is probably getting overly sentimental considering he’s had maybe 2 conversations with the other boy in his life.

“Connor?” he asks, stark against the quiet of the night, gentle, but still so audible Connor feels like he can almost see it visibly disturb the air as he speaks.

“Hi,” Connor says back, at normal volume.

Evan squints (or Connor thinks he’s squinting, but he also can’t really see Evan’s face properly so maybe he just normally looks like that,) and tries, vainly, to make out Connor’s silhouette against the grass of the too-small garden that backs onto his house.

Connor waves. He is not entirely sure it helps, at all.

“I’m, uh, I guess I’ll come down then? Assuming that it is, that you are actually Connor and you didn’t just text to say you’re here because you were going to be here _soon_ , and you’re not actually hear yet, you’re just like, pre-empting your being here, and actually it’s not Connor who just said hi and you’re really just a stranger pretending to be him for some reason.”

“I’m Connor,” Connor says, perfectly reasonably.

The window slides closed, which Connor imagines _probably_ means Evan’s going to come outside, because the other alternative is that Evan is going back to sleep, and he intends to leave Connor outside, confused and unknowing, for however long it takes him to realise that Evan is not just, in fact, very, very slow at tying his shoelaces.

Evan does come outside, because Evan seems to be ‘a good sort’, as Larry would say, and would probably at least text Connor to tell him he was going to back to sleep if he’d really decided to do that.

“Hi,” Connor says, when Evan walks over and peers down at him, tucked up against the wall of Evan’s house.

“Hi,” Evan says in return, sounding more than a little confused.

Connor finds himself pleasantly surprised by how pretty Evan is. He’s not traditionally attractive, really, but he has nice eyes, and his hair looks soft, and even though his clothes always seem a little off, somehow, like they’re not quite the right size, or style, or something like that, he wears them well. He doesn’t mind Evan, he thinks, and then decides he’s not going to think about that whole _thing_ anymore.

“D’you wanna sit down?” Connor asks, because now that Evan’s here he’s not really sure what he’d been planning on saying, or doing.

Evan doesn’t reply, but slides gently down the wall to crouch next to Connor. He stays like that for a few seconds, and when Connor makes no indication of having noticed he’s moved, untucks his legs so they’re kicked out in front of him. Even when Evan’s trying to relax he seems too tense, Connor thinks. It’s not like Evan’s ever going to be completely calm, loose-bodied and comfortable, but he just looks wound up, like he’s too full of an energy he’s not sure how to deal with.

“You don’t have to be freaked out just ‘cause I’m here. And like...if you really don’t want to chill you can go back inside. I’m not forcing you to be out here, and I’m not gonna stop you going back to bed if you want to.”

Evan seems to relax a little at that, looking less like a prey animal about to bolt, choosing flight over fight, as ever.

“I just,” he begins, and when Connor knocks his shoulder gently against the other boy’s, continues, “I don’t understand why I’m here. Jared would say you’re going to like, murder me or something, and I don’t think, that’s not the kind of thing you’d really do, I’m sure, but also, I just… don’t get why me?”

Connor turns the question over in his mind, almost physical, like if he looked at it from just the right angle he’d be able to offer a proper answer instead of the barely comprehensible one he wants to give.

“I thought you’d be interesting.”

Evan doesn’t reply.

“I said it earlier. I was right.”

Evan still doesn’t reply, but Connor likes to think he can see a little more tension ease out of his shoulders. God only knows why, because Connor’s not even sure he understands his own reasoning half the time.

“You know any constellations?” Connor asks, staring at the sky. Where they are the stars aren’t always very visible, but tonight, it seems, is a good night for stargazing. They look like fireflies, warm beads of amber dotted about the sky. “When we were kids Zoe and I made some on my ceiling with those glow in the dark stars. Only like, two, and they were kinda fucked up because neither of us could figure out how far apart from each other the stars needed to be, but we tried.”

A pause, because Connor feels like he should at least give Evan the chance to reply, even though he really doesn’t think he will. Evan doesn’t say anything, so he continues. “Lepus is my favourite, I think. I couldn’t pick it out for you even if I tried, even on like, one of those star maps. I just liked the idea of it. Something that doesn’t already have an stories attached to it. I’m sure there are other constellations like it, too, but. You know.”

Evan opens his mouth, like he might say something, and Connor half-smiles at nothing in particular, staring at the sky and watching it sway like a reflection in a pool.

“I could probably point out most of them,” Evan says, slowly, but very matter-of-factly, “I worked at a camp thing over the summer,” he manages, before he cuts himself off. “Sorry. You probably don’t want to hear about that.”

“Nah, go for it,” Connor says easily, the soft, downy feeling that seems to be wrapped around his thoughts dulling whatever defence mechanism it was that ensured that most of what he said normally was either insulting or kind-of scary.

“I was a park ranger, so I spent a lot of time in the forest and that, and, aside from all the trees and that you could get a pretty good view of the stars, without all the light pollution? And most of the time I went home before it got dark, but a couple of times I stayed there overnight with a few of the other rangers, and they’d teach me what was what. Like, star-wise. Obviously most of them had done a lot of this kind of thing before, like working as camp counsellors or something, ‘cause they could just rattle them off like it was nothing. And I’m pretty sure they made up some of them, just because they knew I couldn’t tell that they were doing it, but it was pretty cool.”

Evan pauses, briefly, and then his face falls. “Oh my god, sorry, I didn’t - you should have told me I was rambling. That was so rude of me.”

Connor shakes his head once, and then twice more because it makes his head feel weirdly heavy at the end of each half-rotation, and he wants to make sure he’ll be able to properly recall the sensation later.

“You’re pretty high, aren’t you?” Evan asks. He doesn’t sound disapproving, or disappointed, or surprised, or affronted, or any of the other emotions Connor would have expected from him. If anything he just sounds curious, like it’s one of those things he doesn’t entirely get _,_ but that he’s happy not to question.

Connor wants to say a lot of things in reply.

Instead, he asks, “how could you tell?”

Evan shrugs, and begins counting on his fingers. “Firstly you smell, like, bad, and if my mom was home I’d probably be worried it’d rub off on me, but she’s away so I guess it’s just me who has to deal with, to put up with all that. Secondly you’re moving way too slowly, just, abnormally slowly really, and thirdly, you texted me, and I quote, because you ‘thought i’d be interesting’.”

“You don’t know me though,” Connor says, choosing wisely not to bother debating the first two points raised, but making a mental note that he probably needs to get out the can of deodorant he’d brought with him before he heads home. “Maybe I’m always looking for interesting people. Maybe that’s my thing.”

“We exchanged texts once, two years ago, about a school project,” Evan says evenly.

“Well clearly you left an impression,” Connor replies, unthinkingly, and only _mostly_ because he thinks it makes him sound funny. It’s almost true.

Evan seems amused more than anything else, when Connor turns to face him. He’s struck, suddenly by just how tired Evan looks. Unthinkingly, because while Connor usually struggles with boundaries in terms of his anger, when he’s high he just struggles with boundaries in general, he reaches forward with a thumb, and moves to swipe a line along the dark rings underneath Evan’s right eye.

Connor’s impulsive, but he’s not a complete asshole, so he choreographs his movements enough that he’s sure Evan at least gets the general gist of what he’s about to do. Evan doesn’t move.

“You need to sleep more,” Connor declares, once he’s withdrawn his hand.

“Probably,” Evan replies, and Connor’s surprised by how not-anxious Evan sounds.

“Why aren’t you freaking out?” he asks, because now that he’s thinking about it he really, truly cannot fathom why Evan is down here with him, or why he isn’t freaking out about Connor randomly touching his face.

“I’m not really sure. I think I’m too tired to really register what’s happening, like, logically. It all feels a bit unreal. I’m sure I’ll have the, that I’ll panic over it in the morning, probably.”

“Try not to,” Connor says, like it’s that easy.

He turns back to the sky, and has almost forgotten that Evan’s there when he next speaks.

“That one’s Orion,” he’s telling Connor, pointing somewhere up into night. “Lepus is below it, but it’s not one of the bright ones, so we can’t see it right now.”

Connor nods, oddly touched by the fact that Evan’s apparently been listening, even though he really has no idea what he’s supposed to be looking at. Evan keeps talking, pointing out a few more constellations, some individual stars, and recounting passable attempts at the myths surrounding them. He stops when he realises that Connor’s closed his eyes, and isn’t actually looking at any of the things Evan’s trying to show him.

“Sorry,” Connor says, the word sounding weirdly big in his mouth, like it means something more than it does, and then, “you have a nice voice. And I can’t really see what I’m meant to be looking at. You need, like, a laser pointer or something, for next time.”

Evan doesn’t comment on the ‘next time’, but he seems sort-of-appeased by Connor’s explanation, if not a little flustered.

“You okay, Hansen?”

Evan shifts his gaze towards Connor, stops running his eyes over the same patch of grass for the 5th time.

“I’m okay.”  
  
“Okay,” Connor says. He doesn’t believe him, really, but it’s not his place to push, and he doesn’t want to break the fragile peace between them. He still feels a little like if he makes one wrong move Evan’s going to disappear, rush back into his house, lock the doors and bolt the windows, go to sleep and pretend the whole thing with Connor was just a bad dream.

He wouldn’t say he’s high anymore, really, but everything feels dulled, somehow, like all the sharp corners have gone flat. It makes it easier to let things go, to relax where he’d usually tense up, lash out.

“How lonely do you think it gets,” Connor asks, quietly, “up there? Being a star, being thousands of light years away from anything worthwhile.”

Evan’s probably going to assume Connor’s just talking nonsense because he’s been smoking, but he actually feels pretty lucid. There’s something about the lack of familiarity between him and Evan, the cool evening breeze and the faint glow of the moonlight that makes him feel calm, indulgent. Like, for whatever reason, in this space, right here and right now, he could say anything he wanted, and it’d be okay.

“Very,” Evan says, “but wouldn’t it be kind of worth it? Imagine the view.”

Connor doesn’t reply, thinks about distance and time and how things change when you look at them up close.

“You have a crush on my sister,” he points out.

“I did,” Evan says, fingers curled up gently in some of the long tufts of grass the pair are sitting in. His knuckles are red, a little rough, like maybe he’s been rubbing at them for some reason, injured them somehow. Connor tries not to stare. “Not anymore.”

Connor nods sagely, plucks two flowers from by his feet, and sets about tying them together. He’s thinking about making a flower crown, or a flower anklet or something, like he used to for Zoe, when they were still friends as well as siblings, and she wasn’t terrified of him. Evan tucks his knees up against his chest, and then rests his head on them, watching Connor as closely as he can in the dim lighting.

“I don’t think I’ll have enough to finish it,” Connor tells him, “it’s never gonna fit anyone. Even my wrists aren’t that thin.”

“That’s okay,” Evan says. “It doesn’t need to be useful to be worthwhile.”

Connor feels kind of like he’s dreaming. Not like anything particularly weird is happening, really - Evan’s probably here because he’s the kind of person who’s too embarrassed to say no to anything, ever, and Connor’s still at least a little out of it, even if he’s mostly ok now, and that’s at least part of the reason everything feels so safe, and vaguely transcendental.

“Why are you here?” Connor asks, tone uncertain, like he’s not entirely sure he wants to know the answer.

“You asked me to be,” Evan replies, like it’s obvious, like it’s the kind of answer that should make sense to Connor. It doesn’t, and then Evan, quiet, carefully thought out, anxious Evan, Evan who never does anything at all to rock the boat if he can help it, reaches out and takes a hold of Connor’s hand.

 _Oh,_ Connor thinks.

“Why are you here?” Evan asks, quietly, like he’s not sure he wants to know either.

“I’m not sure,” Connor says, because he’s not, and ‘you’re interesting’ doesn’t feel like a good enough reason, now. He pauses, swallows, stares at Evan’s hand, warm and soft in his own. He wonders if he ran a finger over his knuckles they’d feel as rough as they looked, what Evan would say, if anything. “I’m glad I am.”

Connor stares at the half-finished flower chain, draped over his right knee. He almost wants to finish it, just to prove that he can, but he doesn’t want to let go of Evan’s hand, either, and he’s not sure which is more important.

“Do you want to listen to some music?” he tries instead.

Evan nods, and Connor pulls his phone out of his pocket, valiantly trying to enter his passcode with the pointer finger of his left hand. Evan lets go of his right hand, and nudges him gently with his elbow.

Connor considers trying to find something appropriate, but decides he’s not even sure how he feels right now, what’s going on here, let alone how to find a song that could fit the tone. He hits shuffle, instead, on a playlist he doesn’t want to attach a meaning to choosing. He’s always had an eclectic music taste, but it’s one of the few things he’s never let himself feel bad about. Zoe had been similar, and he wonders how much of her interests were influenced by his, growing up. Not that they really resemble each other now anyway. She’s her own person, arguably a better one than Connor will ever be.

He offers an earbud to Evan, wiping it with the sleeve of his hoodie before handing it over. Evan takes it, and the two sit there, watching the moon. Connor curls his fingers between Evan’s again, and he can see the other boy smile softly beside him.

Evan doesn’t say anything about his choice in music, even when they’ve been sitting there for so long that the playlist’s started to loop, and Connor’s left wondering if he should explain this, that it’s a playlist he made, and that he does have more than 8 songs on his phone. He thinks it would normally be embarrassing, the kind of thing he’d feel too weird about to ever acknowledge out loud, that he made playlists for things that he was never quite sure were going to happen, and what, exactly, he’d made this one about, but it’s almost tempting to.

They’ve been quiet for almost a whole half-hour, maybe even a little longer than that, now, Connor thinks to himself. He glances at Evan, focused on a point far off in the distant sky, clearly somewhere in his own head.

“Hey,” he says, bumping his shoulder against the other boy’s.

“Hey,” Evan responds after a beat, turning his head just enough that Connor knows he’s at least somewhat present again.

“What’cha thinking about?” Connor asks.

“Do you think this will change anything?”

Connor considers it. Probably not, he thinks, but doesn’t say. Probably, when he’s sober, and it’s daytime, and everything’s stopped feeling like he’s looking at it through a sheet of gauze, probably then he’ll regret this display of… vulnerability? He’s not sure what to call it. He’s certainly shown his hand, that’s for sure, played it straight enough that even Evan can probably tell that Connor’s rather hideously enamoured with him, for some unknown reason.

He’d never meant for it to happen, isn’t sure when it did or why, just knows he woke up one day and realised he was _pining_ , and then tried not to think about it ever again. He knows there was a reason it was Evan he chose to text.

“I’m not sure,” Connor says. “Do you think it could?”

The tinny thrum of music in his ear continues, unashamedly optimistic. It’s not one of those cliches, Connor doesn’t think it’s saying ‘all the things he can’t bring himself to’, or anything of that sort, but it’s yet more evidence of the fact that he is, somehow, compromised. Emotionally. That Evan has, bafflingly, found a way under his skin, managed to claw out space enough in his chest that Connor can’t deny he at least feels _something_ for him, no matter how embarrassing-high-school-crush-like it might be.

“Maybe,” Evan replies, voice level, but in a way that sounds deliberately cultivated, like he’s not sure he wants to say everything he’s thinking, doesn’t want to make it seem like it matters to him, particularly, and then, “yes, if you wanted. I’m not, I wouldn’t make a thing of it, obviously, if this is just something, if you do this kind of thing a lot when you’re high and it’s just, you know, what you’re like, and it doesn’t mean anything. But. I mean. If you wanted…”

He trails off, lets it hang in the air and waits for Connor to pick it up, to offer something in return.

“I have a crush on you,” he tells Evan. He’s saying a lot of stupid things today, he thinks, knows in the back of his mind that this is _very_ much a bad idea, that being stoned can only explain away so much of the evening, that even if Evan can’t tell how much of this is genuine Jared will know enough about weed to be able to inform him when he inevitably blabs about it that Connor’s not just had a strange, sudden change of heart regarding his feelings towards Evan as a result of smoking too much. He’s pretty sure he’s seen Jared smoking once or twice, behind the school building, with a group of people he’s not sure are actually his friends, but are apparently polite enough to be offering him a few hits of whatever they were smoking anyway. He’ll know.

“Okay,” Evan says, sounding both surprised and not at the same time. It’s quite impressive. Connor’s not sure if he should tell him so. “Why?”

“You know that English project,” Connor begins, and from the way Evan’s expression goes politely blank at the memory Connor knows he does, “well, I guess before then I’d always thought you were like. I mean, you’re attractive, right?” he continues, like this is something Evan should know, an immediately obvious fact of life and not the kind of thing that should even be in question, “but you don’t do much. Your only friend is Kleinman and he’s kind of a shithead. So I figured you had to be an asshole, somehow, that you couldn’t actually be a nice guy and not have so few friends.”

Evan doesn’t reply, looks at Connor like he’s trying to piece something together but is missing everything he needs, a puzzle he’ll only ever be able to half-finish.

“But I talked to you, for like, a few hours or whatever, so we could do the presentation, and you were just. A nice guy. Like actually a nice guy. You talked about your mom like you really cared about her, and I remember you said some, some irrelevant fact, and you gave me this look like you thought I was gonna chastise you for it or something, like you’d said something wrong, and I thought, okay, well. And then it was like I didn’t have an excuse to _not_ have a crush on you anymore, you know?”

“Okay,” Evan says again.

“Is it?” Connor asks. It’s a stupid question, because it’s not like he’s even said anything controversial. Evan’s not going to fight with him over whether or not he’s a good person, or if Connor should have a crush on him, but he feels like he needs some reassurance anyway. The whole exchange has left him feeling a little like he’s on the wrong foot.

“I think so.”

Connor doesn’t immediately reply, and Evan keeps talking.

“I have a crush too,” Evan says, slowly, like he knows he’s doing something he’ll regret but that is determined to finish doing it regardless. Connor wants to tell him he knows exactly how that feels. “On you. Obviously.”

“Huh.”

Connor doesn’t smile, really, but he feels everything go soft, feels the tension ease out of his body and lets himself think about the fact that it’s nearly one in the morning and he’s sat in Evan Hansen’s backyard, holding his hand, and that Evan has a crush on him. It’s still not registering properly, and he almost wishes he was entirely lucid, just so he knows how it feels to know something like that and not have it feel not-quite-true, through the blanket he feels like he’s sat under.

He can feel Evan’s thumb trace over the curve of his knuckles, probably unintentionally, soft and warm and just a little calloused, like he’s done too much with his hands. He wonders if it’s from the park ranger stuff. He remembers Alana telling him that Evan had kept it up after the summer, after his arm had healed, that it was what he did on the weekends. He’s not sure how he managed to miss that she’d obviously figured out about his crush, now that he thinks about it, about how often she’d tell him ridiculous, entirely unremarkable facts about Evan, someone she barely knew and had no reason to talk about. He thinks about how Evan would look, sat in a tree, way up high, how he’d look sat like that now, in this light, a dark shape against the stars.

He feels like he can sort of grasp the edges of his high now, like he can feel something solidifying, and he wonders if he’ll be here long enough that he’ll get to hold Evan’s hand while not-high.

“Do you need to go inside, soon?” Connor asks, because as much as he wants to keep Evan out here he _also_ knows that Evan’s the kind of person who can’t actually _ask_ to leave and will instead force himself to stay out until Connor dismisses him, no matter how many good reasons he might have for going inside. Hansen will probably be shattered if he stays out any longer, Connor reasons. They have school tomorrow.

“I mean, kind of,” Evan says, frowning at his shoes, “like I should probably sleep, and my mum won’t be back for another hour or so but I don’t really want to still be up when she gets in.”

Connor moves to let go of Evan, to gently coax him into motion and make himself scarce, begin the walk back to his house. Evan, almost imperceptibly, tightens his grip, and Connor stops.

“You can stay, though.”

Evan’s always trying to justify himself, like he can’t offer up anything without an explanation. “I mean, um - I know your house isn’t the closest, like, not that I ever _tried_ to find out where you lived or anything, just, Jared said something once about Zoe, and your neighbourhood, and, well. And it’s late, and it’s dark, and I know you walked here so it’ll take you ages to get home again, and my mom won’t mind.” Evan gets quieter and quieter as he talks, like each word is another mistake he won’t be able to correct, no matter how badly he might want to.

“Okay.”

Evan seems bemused by his reply, like he’d been expecting a fight, or an immediate dismissal, like _Connor’s_ the one who’s being surprising.

“I’ll text Zoe,” he tells Evan, “my parents won’t believe I’m not just, like, passed out in a park somewhere, but they won’t worry as long as they know I’m not, like, dead. If that’s really okay?”

Evan nods decisively.

“I’ll leave a note for my mom,” he says, “so she doesn’t think you broke in, or something. Not that you look like the kind of person who’d break into someone’s house, or that someone would ever really break into a house just to go to sleep or whatever, but. Yeah.”

Connor moves to stand, again, but doesn’t bother loosening his grip on Evan’s hand this time, tugs at it gently like he’s asking him if it’s okay instead of assuming. Evan follows him, pads gently over to the back door and slides open the screen he’d come out of, and leads Connor inside.

He hadn’t realised how cold it was, outside, until he’d been confronted with the heavy warmth of Evan’s house. It feels safe, cozy. Nothing like his house, too big and too impersonal and always too cold, no matter how high he turned the heating up.

“I can sleep on the couch,” Evan says. It’s kind of charming, that Evan thinks he might need to be chivalrous, self-sacrificing like that.

“It’s okay. I don’t wanna put you out of a bed or something, and I’ve crashed on enough couches I’ve sort of figured out how to do it without fucking up my back too bad.”

Evan doesn’t fight him over it, though he looks kind of like he wants to, and Connor’s absurdly grateful for it. Today’s been weird enough already, and in a way sleeping on a sort-of-stranger’s couch is enough Connor’s modus operandi that it seems comfortingly familiar, conceptually.

Evan leads Connor over to the kitchen counter, rifles through a clay pot full of pens (it looks handmade - Connor can imagine a tiny Evan carefully rolling out little rings of clay to make it, stacking them one on top of the other like a Jenga tower,) and pulls out a yellow post-it. He does the whole thing without letting go of Connor. It’s kind of sweet. Connor isn’t certain how much of it is done consciously.

He doesn’t read the note, has had his own privacy invaded enough times (and invaded other people’s enough times) to know better, just watches the way Evan writes. It’s not graceful, the way he seems to almost scratch the words into the paper, but it’s comfortingly Evan, the sort of thing he’d expected from him.

“Um,” Evan says, once he’s finished, Connor still staring absentmindedly at his hand, loose around the biro, “so. Uh.”

Connor leads Evan to the front door, even though he’s not actually sure where he’s going until he gets there, because Evan seems confused, and he’s not really sure what to say either. Evan smooths the little yellow note into place on the mirror in the house’s entryway. Connor’s pretty sure it’s obvious enough his mom will notice when she gets in, and nods approvingly.

“Okay,” Evan tries again. He stops, immediately, and Connor gets the feeling that the situation’s a little too real for him now, with Connor in his house, in his personal space.

“The couch?” he prods, gently, trying not to make the situation worse.

Evan starts moving, and Connor trails after him. He mourns the loss of contact immediately, when Evan releases his hand and tells him to wait for a second, disappearing up the stairs with a practiced ease. It’s clear he’s had to learn to move silently, a side effect, presumably, of his mom’s strange work hours. Evan’s always seemed overly careful to look out for other people.

He comes back down carrying two blankets and a pillow. Connor moves to tell him that there are more than enough cushions on the couch for him to not need a pillow, but Evan seems to intercept that train of thought before he gets any words out.

“The cushions are like, super uncomfortable, like they’re way too solid to sleep on, so I got you this pillow, and we don’t have any spare duvets or anything like that but I _did_ find these blankets? They’re clean, but I don’t know how like, warm they’ll keep you, so I figured I’d bring them both down just in case you needed them. Both. Needed them both.”

Connor smiles at him, because he hasn’t done that much tonight, even though he’s really wanted to, and Evan goes a little pink.

“Thanks, Hansen,” Connor says, and then, changing his mind, “Evan.”

Evan hands him the pile of bed-stuff, and Connor sets about making himself at least an attempt at a comfortable sort-of-bed for the night, trying not to let himself become too hyper-aware of the way Evan’s watching him.

“I’ll see you in the morning,” Evan tries to say. It comes out like a question instead.

Connor doesn’t answer immediately, because, well, that’s the kicker isn’t it? This can all be written off as a particularly weird night, as something that probably-did-but-maybe-didn’t happen, so long as he’s gone before Evan wakes up.

Evan moves like he wants to touch Connor’s shoulder, before catching himself in the act and straightening quickly enough that Connor almost doesn’t see it happen, the way he’d reached forward. It moves him to speak.

“Yeah,” Connor says, readily, like it doesn’t mean something, like he isn’t making the kind of commitment he’s not going to be able to take back later.

And then, because Connor likes to push his luck, he takes a step forward, and pulls Evan into a hug. It’s stupid, and dumb, and it is _absolutely_ not the kind of thing that someone like Connor does, but he keeps thinking about how hard Evan is trying, for some godforsaken reason, how he genuinely seems to want Connor around, and he doesn’t know what else to do.

Evan hugs him back, because it’s Evan, and that’s the kind of thing Evan does, but it’s more confident than Connor would have expected, if he’d had predicted anything at all about the situation.

Evan’s hands curl up in the hoodie he’s wearing, absurdly gentle, and he shuffles forward a little so his face is pressed up against Connor’s chest, and he very pointedly does not meet Connor’s eyes.

Neither of them let go for a very long time.

“Your back is wet,” Evan tells him.

“I was lying down,” Connor replies, smiling despite himself, charmed, “and it was raining. Or it _had_ been, I guess. It stopped before I decided to hang out in a field.”

“I should go to bed,” Evan says, because apparently he needs to continue pointing out the obvious. “You should go to bed. We have school tomorrow.”

Connor hums thoughtfully, and then corrects him. “ _You_ have school tomorrow. I have a reputation to maintain.”

“Come anyway,” Evan says.

“Okay,” Connor agrees, because he’s an idiot.

“Okay.”

“Go to bed, Evan,” Connor tells him, and Evan nods, and lets go.

He could probably kiss him, Connor thinks to himself. He doesn’t, because it’s late, and things are weird, and he can still feel a rough kind of burn in his throat from the weed, but he could, probably. He’s done enough dumb shit already today. Evan probably wouldn’t even be surprised.  

Tomorrow, he thinks. Maybe tomorrow.

**Author's Note:**

> half-beta'd by @sylphoflight, in that she read the first half for me and then i decided to add another however-many-thousand words and post it without waiting for her to make more corrections. so. blame me for any & all mistakes
> 
> i was supposed to be working on easy to reach but instead i did this. im not sure if it was worth it or not
> 
> connor does end up forgetting to use his deodorant. just in case that plot hole was a particular bother to anyone other than myself
> 
> title from the ajr song by the same name
> 
> edit: i appreciate the support but i'm really not planning on writing more for this! i have too much other stuff in the works rn. ty for all the kind words though <3


End file.
